/tg/Station 13

Bottom post of the previous page:

Revs, Clock Cult, and Blood Cult are some of the most despised round types. They dont really have a place on the server with how rarely security is staffed anymore.

Lack of security is only one problem, each mode has its own problems besides the fact that conversion as an ability is too powerful. mass conversion is basically the be all end all strategy.

Clock Cult is basically mass conversion with a free unassailable space base right now, and the coder in charge of the mode has mentioned being burned out working on it. With the glaring problem of mass conversion leading to 10 minutes of just waiting for the damn round to end.

Blood Cult has been foolishly buffed by giving the cultists full blown wizard spells as well as taser reflection shields that you can throw to AOE stun people as well as traitor bolas that cant be used by non-cultists. This basically has made the problem of calling the shuttle the moment that blood cult is called even worse, as with the current culture of no security as well as poorly thought out changes makes fighting the cult a fools errand.

Rev rounds have always been administrative nightmares as half the time non-revs murder each other out of pure paranoia and if the rev round does go normally the round is over in 15-20 minutes, making many of the jobs on the station pointless to do. If Rev rounds go poorly they can be hour long boring slogs of people whining in dead-chat while the last rev head or head of staff hides behind a hidden wall. The argument to keep revs as being a way for the server to "Blow off steam" is a poor one, as the server has been trying to move away from low RP team deathmatch bullshit for awhile.

Conversion modes arent really the direction the server needs to be going in anymore if balanced, fun, medium RP is what is desired. Removing them from rotation and making them admin only rounds until they can be changed to actually be fun and balanced, or the problem of people not playing sec is solved, would honestly be an improvement.

Could someone explain something to me? Why is it that people prefer playing modes where getting defeated by the antags means you're out of the round permanently rather than a mode where you get to keep playing with free valids?

Luke Cox wrote:Could someone explain something to me? Why is it that people prefer playing modes where getting defeated by the antags means you're out of the round permanently rather than a mode where you get to keep playing with free valids?

Because one you can fight against and actually feel like you are winning vs the others which are chaotic shitshows where it is hard to tell if anything you are doing is actually helping or not.

I'll grant you that they can be a bit of a clusterfuck. Rev is fine because once someone is implanted, that's it. Blood cult had problems, but coderbus is actively working to alleviate it. Cluck cult I dunno.

Dr_bee wrote:

Luke Cox wrote:Could someone explain something to me? Why is it that people prefer playing modes where getting defeated by the antags means you're out of the round permanently rather than a mode where you get to keep playing with free valids?

Because one you can fight against and actually feel like you are winning vs the others which are chaotic shitshows where it is hard to tell if anything you are doing is actually helping or not.

Adding on to this, notice how traitorchan got out pretty fast too, a gamemode where you have no idea who the antagonists are until they kill you with their concealed nodrop esword or get caught running around the hallways stinging everyone with one of their annoying abilities, which happened pretty often. Alternatively they can sit in a private room and spam spiders all round with no consequences or fear of getting caught as long as there was a vent

With the cults it's also a pain if you're not a cultist and get arrested; I don't think there's an easy way to tell that the holy water's been in your system long enough.

somerandomguy wrote:With the cults it's also a pain if you're not a cultist and get arrested; I don't think there's an easy way to tell that the holy water's been in your system long enough.

If you're not a cultist there is no tell for "this guy isn't a cultist" other than just waiting roughly the same time it would take an actual cultist to deconvert.

If you honestly can't tell whether someone is a cultist or not, you might actually be retarded.

Luke Cox wrote:If you honestly can't tell whether someone is a cultist or not, you might actually be retarded.

One of these two is a cultist. Choose wisely.

Luke Cox wrote:Blood cult had problems, but coderbus is actively working to alleviate it

cedarbridge wrote:

Luke Cox wrote:If you honestly can't tell whether someone is a cultist or not, you might actually be retarded.

One of these two is a cultist. Choose wisely.

Dunk, search bag, drown in holy water, release.

Also, if Oldman's PR goes through (spoiler alert it will), one will have glowing eyes unless the cult is tiny.

Luke Cox wrote:

cedarbridge wrote:

Luke Cox wrote:If you honestly can't tell whether someone is a cultist or not, you might actually be retarded.

One of these two is a cultist. Choose wisely.

Dunk, search bag, drown in holy water, release.

Also, if Oldman's PR goes through (spoiler alert it will), one will have glowing eyes unless the cult is tiny.

So what you're admitting here is that there is no actual way to tell whether someone is a cultist or not unless they actually deconvert. Glad we took the long way to get there.

Luke Cox wrote:

cedarbridge wrote:

Luke Cox wrote:If you honestly can't tell whether someone is a cultist or not, you might actually be retarded.

One of these two is a cultist. Choose wisely.

Dunk, search bag, drown in holy water, release.

Also, if Oldman's PR goes through (spoiler alert it will), one will have glowing eyes unless the cult is tiny.

"If you honestly can't tell whether someone is a cultist or not, you might actually be retarded" does not imply "RANDOM SEARCH LITERALLY EVERYBODY LOL"

A. Oldman is way ahead of you. Cultists will get glowing eyes when they comprise 20% of the station population, and a red aura at 40%.

B. You don't just discern cultists from how they look, you look at how they act. If they immediately run when you enter the room, they're probably a cultist. If they're running around maint and not an assistant or engineer, they're probably a cultist. Lots of cults like to base themselves in one department, which makes things easier for you. Don't be an autistic retard and you can generally discern who's sketchy.

In theory, you could actually capture a cultist alive and perform brainwashing surgery on them to force them to name all the cultists. I really want to try that sometime.

This is peak security posting

> people take lings over the occasional rev

God help us all

Playing HoS for 3 and a half years does things to a man.

I think the reason that a lot of sec has trouble with conversion antags is because they don't like to actively pursue antagonists. Could be out of fear of the dreaded bwoink, the playerbase hating "shitcurity", or mechanics. Probably a bit of each. Either way, sec players seem to prefer sitting back and going after antags once someone calls them out over the radio. This is generally how things should go with traitorchan, but conversion antags need to be pursued actively. They seem to have it together when it comes to revs (i.e. immediately moving to secure critical departments like cargo), but they try to play cult like traitorchan. You need to arm the chaplain to the teeth, have pairs of officers patrol maint for cult dens, and detain people who are obviously acting sketchy. "Random search" means not dunking people who are obviously doing nothing wrong. Running in and out of maint, hanging out in departments where you don't belong, and bolting from sec officers when you see them is clear probable cause. You're allowed to search people with probable cause, fucking do it. Just because cultists can't convert as fast as revs doesn't mean that you wont' be overrun if you play too passively/

Plenty of the problems with cult are mechanical, and Oldman is making great progress in fixing them. However, I think that sec needs to adjust its mentality too. Different antagonists call for different tactics.

Cobby wrote:> people take lings over the occasional rev

God help us all

This man gets it

Cult as a mode runs too fast and cultists can escalate in power far more quickly then security can put them down if the cult is even half competent. Converting is easy and takes very little amount of time, and is silent, and can be done nearly anywhere. Cult have escalating abilities and snowball the longer the round goes on.

Security, meanwhile, are very linear. A typical security team is understaffed and at any given point almost definitely has less players then the cult. Catching a cultist (if they even catch someone who is a cultist) takes a long time. The target has to be persued. Dragged to brig. Searched. Fed holy water. A minute or two has to be waited. The player can be teleported back to the cult for free. The target has to be implanted. All of this adds up to a very long waiting game to undo what a cult can do in a few seconds.

Implanted non-cultists do not 'add' to security's team, or add on a completely voluntary basis. They are free to go back to their jobs. Being implanted and deconverted does not prevent you from being added to the cult again in a different way (via construct).

Security does not 'replenish'. Once an officer is gone, he is gone for good. Nobody has to (and often will not) stand in for an officer. Gear lost by an officer is gone forever. A cultist has a far easier time reviving or replacing an number with someone else who is just as forced to play their team as the last. Cult can always make more gear, and can do it nearly for free.

Every member added to cult is forced to work for their team, and snowballs extremely quickly against an already-outnumbered security force. They can create stun and slow resistant constructs and get special gear specifically created to counteract security's tools. Cultists are not typically immediately obvious, as opposed to the red jumpsuit wearing, helmeted security drone that has a giant target on his back at all times.

Cult isn't fun to play against as security because the cards are already against you from the beginning. It's even worse then ling because even though the ling is a stealth antag (and one I would very much like to see removed), every kill doesn't make another changeling.

But if the cult manages to escalate to that point, who's fault is it? You have to play actively against them. Cult requires a base to work effectively, and that's the key to fighting them. I agree that some of their abilities are OP, and thankfully Oldman is nerfing them significantly. Security will have a much easier time beating down the cult soon, since they'll have glowing red eyes when they hit 20% of the population, and you'll be able to just laser them on sight with their red auras at 40$.

You fail to recognize half the problem is that cult starts at that level. Cult numbers will almost always typically equal or outnumber a standard /tg/ roundstart security force. It only gets worse from that point.

Other things:
-Cult need a base, but a base can be erected anywhere out of the way. Space bases and lavaland are still viable, if less so now. A destroyed cult base is not difficult to relocate.
-Security start with a base, but once lost becomes extremely difficult to relocate. Typical security without a brig or cargo at the bare minumum is a dead security.

I do agree that making cult visible will be a significant nerf, however, but at the point the warning signs start showing up, it is quite probably already too late.

The main, most important thing to remember: short of completely eradicating a cult (which is almost impossible), the only way security wins is to call the shuttle, and often to do it as soon as possible. 40 minute rounds are very lacking in fun, but cult rounds more or less force this inevitability to give security a fighting chance by forcing a time limit. God forbid a head of staff is a cultist, though.

One way I've proposed counteracting that is by locking some of the more powerful abilities behind membership gates, adding a bit more of a ramp up. Make it so that the powers become re-locked if membership falls below the threshold too. That way, deconverting a significant number of cultists becomes something significant. Aside from the visibility issue, I think half the problem is that an early and late game cult are almost equally strong apart from numbers.

While cult have access to all tools at round start, they're gated behind plasteel and these tools being highly visible. Sure you can make narsian armor round start, but that's a REALLY bad idea. I think just Oldman's changes should be pr'ed for now and then a stocktake should be done in a few weeks.

Swagbringer wrote:While cult have access to all tools at round start, they're gated behind plasteel and these tools being highly visible. Sure you can make narsian armor round start, but that's a REALLY bad idea. I think just Oldman's changes should be pr'ed for now and then a stocktake should be done in a few weeks.

Plassteel is not a gate when there is enough of it on station at roundstart to build every altar plus some extra constructs. Also almost everyone with a job has ORM access now, so the moment a miner comes back from lavaland they have access to as much plasteel as they could ever need.

There isnt even any logging on the fucking ORM for christs sake.

Roundstart cultists also spawn with 10 cult metal

It seems like we're all in agreement that constructs are too easy to obtain. What if we reworked how they're created? I was thinking that we get rid of soul shards from non-cultist sacrifices entirely. Instead, you make a rune, put a dead body and a cultist on it (living or dead), and invoke it to gib the non-cultist and turn the cultist into a construct.

What about Rev?

I utterly hate this mode as sec/command because inevitably it means people would be gunning for me. This would be fine if I wasn't affraid of being adminbooped and having to simply give an honest reason of "It's revs and I can't take any chances, that guy looked hostile"

I don't like the idea of stuff being removed but I woulden't be against reworking Rev especially. Blood cult I can take or leave - I don't like fighting them and they are the only antag I have set to off (because even though I don't like ling either I can still run around and do shit that'd get nonantags in trouble!) however I would say despite this that they most certainly add something to the game

The Clowns Pocket wrote:What about Rev?

I utterly hate this mode as sec/command because inevitably it means people would be gunning for me. This would be fine if I wasn't affraid of being adminbooped and having to simply give an honest reason of "It's revs and I can't take any chances, that guy looked hostile"

I don't like the idea of stuff being removed but I woulden't be against reworking Rev especially. Blood cult I can take or leave - I don't like fighting them and they are the only antag I have set to off (because even though I don't like ling either I can still run around and do shit that'd get nonantags in trouble!) however I would say despite this that they most certainly add something to the game

Rev is literally just blood cult without the magic though. It doesn't really even need balancing because the concept of the mode is minimalist. The main reason people don't like rev is because the shuttle doesn't leave and revs have no tells aside implants which leads to false arrests (which are needed preventing conversions anyway) and that shit heads will hide and stall

Yakumo_Chen wrote:

The Clowns Pocket wrote:What about Rev?

I utterly hate this mode as sec/command because inevitably it means people would be gunning for me. This would be fine if I wasn't affraid of being adminbooped and having to simply give an honest reason of "It's revs and I can't take any chances, that guy looked hostile"

I don't like the idea of stuff being removed but I woulden't be against reworking Rev especially. Blood cult I can take or leave - I don't like fighting them and they are the only antag I have set to off (because even though I don't like ling either I can still run around and do shit that'd get nonantags in trouble!) however I would say despite this that they most certainly add something to the game

Rev is literally just blood cult without the magic though. It doesn't really even need balancing because the concept of the mode is minimalist. The main reason people don't like rev is because the shuttle doesn't leave and revs have no tells aside implants which leads to false arrests (which are needed preventing conversions anyway) and that shit heads will hide and stall

It's hard to defend yourself if you're affraid that you'll get booped because uh oh that guy who was running around being a shitter and slipping you wasn't a rev!

You can go open season on people who are clear blood cultists and the tells can be obvious.

The Clowns Pocket wrote:It's hard to defend yourself if you're affraid that you'll get booped because uh oh that guy who was running around being a shitter and slipping you wasn't a rev!

Things that only security mains actually believe for 10 please alex.

oranges wrote:

The Clowns Pocket wrote:It's hard to defend yourself if you're affraid that you'll get booped because uh oh that guy who was running around being a shitter and slipping you wasn't a rev!

Things that only security mains actually believe for 10 please alex.

When I play to do more then goof off I do tend to play command/sec roles, yeah. AFAIK I havent gotten any notes for misconduct as either so I'm clean on that front.

Sec and Command are held at a much higher standard then the rest of the crew. As really it should be because last I checked, harmbatons are still really fucking deadly

Admins have chilled waaaaaay the fuck out when it comes to security dealing with conversion antags (thank god). It used to be that you got a day ban for every "innocent person killed" or something similarly autistic. Now they mostly let it slide if your intentions were good. Last week I was HoS in a rev round, and the captain ordered literally everyone unimplanted to be guillotined. I even ahelped it to be sure since it seemed iffy, but they said it was acceptable.

Luke Cox wrote:Admins have chilled waaaaaay the fuck out when it comes to security dealing with conversion antags (thank god). It used to be that you got a day ban for every "innocent person killed" or something similarly autistic. Now they mostly let it slide if your intentions were good. Last week I was HoS in a rev round, and the captain ordered literally everyone unimplanted to be guillotined. I even ahelped it to be sure since it seemed iffy, but they said it was acceptable.

this

just kill everyone in rev, it's self defense

Wasn't there a time when each rev head could only convert like 3 people each?

Luke Cox wrote:Admins have chilled waaaaaay the fuck out when it comes to security dealing with conversion antags (thank god). It used to be that you got a day ban for every "innocent person killed" or something similarly autistic. Now they mostly let it slide if your intentions were good. Last week I was HoS in a rev round, and the captain ordered literally everyone unimplanted to be guillotined. I even ahelped it to be sure since it seemed iffy, but they said it was acceptable.

huh, thanks. Its really awkward having to announce "OKAY IF ANYONE COMES AT ME IN A HOSTILE MANNER I WILL GUN YOU DOWN!" when it's obvious that everyone is a rev.

This don't mean that I'm going to go murderbone mind, I think that'd get a boop.

The Clowns Pocket wrote:

Luke Cox wrote:Admins have chilled waaaaaay the fuck out when it comes to security dealing with conversion antags (thank god). It used to be that you got a day ban for every "innocent person killed" or something similarly autistic. Now they mostly let it slide if your intentions were good. Last week I was HoS in a rev round, and the captain ordered literally everyone unimplanted to be guillotined. I even ahelped it to be sure since it seemed iffy, but they said it was acceptable.

huh, thanks. Its really awkward having to announce "OKAY IF ANYONE COMES AT ME IN A HOSTILE MANNER I WILL GUN YOU DOWN!" when it's obvious that everyone is a rev.

This don't mean that I'm going to go murderbone mind, I think that'd get a boop.

You can get away with a ton as SEC during a crisis now(which is good). Once revs get rolling and SEC runs out of implants you'll usually see sec resorting to murdering everyone without an implant. If sec doesn't get control of the situation early that's usually the only thing left to do.